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I am currently doing 5/3/1. I started cycle 8 this week. I decided to program Power cleans into my programs for a couple reasons. 1.) I wanted to train my ability to explode and 2.) I am (not so) secretly obsessed with having huge traps.

Wendler recommends doing the Power Cleans on Squat day, before squating. He also recommends programming them with the 5/3/1 protocol.

I power clean squat second workout day of the week. First day being OHP.

On PC and Squat day, I also did good mornings.

Today, on workout day 4 of the week I did deads and I just felt flat. Relatively "light" weights felt heavy. And I ended up tweeking my lower back pretty badly.

Questions:
Is it safe to say I am probably doing too much work that involves my lower back? And my lower back simply can not recover?
If this is the case, what should I drop? The good mornings are the obvious answer in my eyes, but will I get enough hamstring work if I don't include the GMs?
Just looking for a little bit of advice and insight. Thanks.

__________________ Zdravko Veselin Gaeta

I am not a powerlifter nor am I a bodybuilder. I just want to be big and strong.

Quote:

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Don't have the experience of many on here. But I dumped GMs from my 5/3/1. I added power shrugs and love them. I've never had an exercise hammer my traps so good. I get more ham work on squat day, I squat, leg press, then leg curls for hams. So you could always add those in somewhere, or SLDL. Just a thought, hope your back heals quick big man!

__________________~~~Second Amendment~~~
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~~~2 Chronicles 15:7 ~~~
But as for you, be strong and do not give up, for your work will be rewarded.

How heavy did you start the new lift? I tend to start any new lift with really easy weights.

Did you start with a rep max? Every time Wendler has two main lifts using the 5/3/1 progression, one of the lifts is "required reps only".

Everything is individual; for me, I'd treat the Cleans as an added assistance lift. So, I'd either drop one of the one's I was already doing (GMs in this case) or limit it for a while. Throwing an extra 6 sets into a workout is a pretty big change to get used to and it may take a while. I think I would have done like Big Swede said, start really light, treat it like a warm-up exercise, and do it before the squats and deadlifts. Then as I became accustomed to the new exercise I'd start programming it with 5/3/1 required reps only. Just my 2 cents.

Questions:
Is it safe to say I am probably doing too much work that involves my lower back? And my lower back simply can not recover?
If this is the case, what should I drop? The good mornings are the obvious answer in my eyes, but will I get enough hamstring work if I don't include the GMs?
Just looking for a little bit of advice and insight. Thanks.

1. I guess that depends on your weights used and how much you can allow yourself to recover throughout the week. Personally I spent several months hammering my entire back with 531 and then my own thing based off of 531. I only began to see problems when I let my sleep and eating go down and then ultimately I got pretty sick. So, it depends on how much you can allow yourself to recover.

2. You probably will get plenty without, but I am not the most experienced lifter. I did not do power cleans very often on 531, (and if I did, I also did them after squats.) and I just did good mornings on deadlift day.

I think my 531 days went something like:

Monday: Squats, Pause Squats, Front Squats, or RDL's depending on which I wanted to focus on in that cycle. There were some where I just did Squats, pauses, and fronts.(I don't know if I'd recommend 45 minutes of squatting, but it was fun. All that mattered to me)

Wednesday: Normal bench stuff. Then plenty of upper back work.

Friday: Deadlifts, goodmornings, ab woork.

Saturday: Press, back work, press assistance, and then some arms...and more upper back work.

Running basically that, and later doing my own progression modifications on it, I saw great results over a period of almost a year. I think I ran 531 strictly for 7 or 8 months. Hopefully that is some insight for you. By your stats by your username, your lifting experience may cause you to have to do something much different, but this worked for me.

To answer this, you need to determine your priority. I have been doing 5/3/1 for the better part of 4 years and have had good success, but my improvement really started in the last 12 months when I started to treat each 6-8 weeks as a block and decide what I wanted to focus on. While the 5/3/1 lift remained the same, my assistance work changed to match the focus. If your goal is to work on explosiveness, then program that in, but realize you need to minimize the assistance focused to other aspects. If your goal is size, then program that in but minimize the other aspects. It is a yin and yang thing.

I'm on my second month or Mesocycle of 3/5/1. I recently switched GM's to Deadlift day and added SLDL's to Squat day. I feel that works better for me personally. I mainly feel SLDL's in my hams and glutes and not so much in my lower back. Now, doing Stiff-Legged GM's on Deadlift day I feel it in my lower back but, I'm good after a day or two.